ISLAMIC MICRO-FINANCE AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION: A CASE

OF PAKISTAN.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
The reason is that conventional micro financial institutions charge interest on
their loans provided to small and medium enterprises as well as women
entrepreneurs. A vast majority of muslim population refrains from availing
conventional micro financial services due to the element of interest that is
considered repugnant to Sharī’ah. In this scenario, Islamic micro finance has
tremendous potential in these countries and could be used as a powerful weapon
to fight against poverty. It can develop a valuable human capital base by
satisfying the financial needs of Muslim community and positively contribute
towards the economic growth in those countries.

INTRODUCTION
Microfinance refers to making small loans available to poor people (especially
those traditionally excluded from financial services) through programmes
designed specifically to meet their particular needs and circumstances (Khan,
2008; p.6). The needs of the poor in Islamic countries are no different from the
poor in other societies except that these are conditioned and influenced by their
faith and culture in a significant way. They need financial services because they
are often faced with events that call for spending more money than might be
available around the house or in the pocket (IRTI, 2007, p.20)
The Islamic world is enormous with over 1.2 billion people, stretching from
Senegal to the Philippines. Poverty rate is quite high in all Muslim countries
except a few countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Poverty levels
have also been associated with high inequality alongside low productivity. Half
of the Indonesia population (about 129 million) is living below the poverty line
of US$2 a day. While in South Asia two largest Muslim states - Bangladesh and
Pakistan – alone account for 122 million each living below the poverty line
where as 100 million Muslims of India are also living below the poverty line
(IRTI, 2007, p.1 Sources suggest that about 72 percent of people in Muslim
countries do not use the formal financial services because financial system is
interest based which is prohibited in Islam (Karim, Tarazi and Reille, 2008). This
study attempts to give an overview of Islamic micro finance development in
Muslim countries while focusing on its operations in Pakistan. It takes a case
study of Akhuwat, an Islamic microfinance organization. It was established in
2001 and the objective was to help the people living in abject poverty with interest
free credit The research paper analyses the financial performance of Akhuwat for
the period 2002-2006 and gives recommendations for the future potential of
Islamic microfinance in the country.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
Over the last few years micro-finance has been increasingly recognized as an
important component in poverty alleviation strategies. Poor households face
difficulty in generating regular and substantial income to save for future and are
extremely vulnerable to economic, political, and physical downturns. A little
drop in income or increase in expense can have a disastrous effect on their
already low standard of living. They have limited access to health care facilities;
have low literacy rate and poor living conditions. Death, sickness, or accident
may force them to dispose their property or some of the productive assets, which
in turn further decreases future income and current livelihood. The frequency of
losses is also greater for the poor; many are regularly exposed to natural disasters
(like flood), fire, and theft with limited means of recovery (Patel, 2004; Ahmad,
2007; Obaidullah, 2008).
Given the dominance of western culture and values as well as plight and
vulnerability of today’s Islamic world, there has always been an incessant
conflict between the two civilizations. Muslims have always been struggling for
decades at almost every walk of real life to retain their values and culture. The
philosophy behind such struggle is underpinned in powerful expression of
collective identity that is multiple and highly diversified following the contours
of each culture and historical formation of each identity. The feeling of this
collective identity has urged Muslim scholars to find solutions of current
economic problems to make their lives compatible with Sharī’ah and to
safeguard the Muslim Ummah against the perils of the western culture. (Yusuf,
2006; pp.56-63)

While conventional microfinance products have been successful in Muslim

majority countries, these products do not fulfill the needs of all Muslim clients.
Combining the Islamic social principle of caring for the less fortunate with
microfinance’s power to provide financial access to the poor has the potential to
reach out to millions more people, many of whom say they would prefer Islamic
products over conventional microfinance products. From affordable loans and
insurance products to safe places to save, microfinance services have been
powerful weapons in the fight against poverty, especially in Latin America and
South Asia (CGAP News, 2008).

The World Bank estimates that there are over 7000 microfinance institutions,
serving some 16 million poor people in developing countries. The total cash
turnover of MFIs world-wide is estimated at US$2.5 billion and
the potential for new growth is outstanding. The Microcredit Summit estimates
that US$21.6 billion is needed to provide microfinance to 100 million of the
world's poorest families.

Other estimates tell us that worldwide, there are 13 million microcredit

borrowers, with USD 7 billion in outstanding loans, and generating repayment
rates of 97 percent; growing at a rate of 30 percent annual growth. Despite all this
less than 18% of the world’s poorest households have access to financial services
(Grameen Foundation, 2007). Ahmad (2007) points out that Microfinance
initiative is widely acclaimed as a new approach to alleviate Poverty, to bring
about economic development and to improve the living conditions of the poor.
The application of Islamic finance to microfinance was first discussed in depth by
Rahul and Sapcanin (1998). They demonstrate that Islamic banking, with its
emphasis on risk sharing and, for certain products and collateral-free loans, is
compatible with the needs of some micro-entrepreneurs. Viable projects that are
rejected by conventional lending institutions because of insufficient collateral
might prove to be acceptable to Islamic banks on a profit-sharing basis However,
they concluded that from a microfinance standpoint the mudaraba model (profit-
sharing) has more drawbacks than the murabaha model (cost plus markup). The
murabaha model is overall more cost effective, has a lower margin of error, and
provides immediate collateral for a MFI because the MFI owns the goods until
the last installment is paid. Dusuki (2006) has presented the idea of Islamic
microfinance initiative in the perspective of Ibn Khaldun’s concept of ‘Asabiyah
or social Solidarity that emphasizes group efforts and loyalty over self-interests
of individuals. He argues that Islamic microfinance can be promoted through
group lending to the poor who are normally denied access to mainstream banking
services.
According to Dr. Abbas Mirakhor, Executive Director of the IMF as refered by
Chaudhri (2006): "[An] important function of Islamic finance that is seldom
noted … is the ability of Islamic finance to provide the vehicle for financial and
economic empowerment … to convert dead capital into income generating assets
to financially and economically empower the poor..." Microfinance is already
more structurally aligned to applying Islamic equity financing structures. As
mentioned previously, microfinance programs are based on group sharing of risk
and personal guarantee while maintenance of trust and honesty is tied to the
availability of future funds (Chaudhri, 2006).

Ahmad (2007) opines that contemporary Islamic finance has been largely
disengaged from microfinance. On the one hand, most microfinance institutions
(MFIs) are not Islamic as their financing is interest based. On the other hand,
Islamic financial system has been dominated mainly by Islamic banks. He further
argues that MFI has to create various reserves to cover various risks arising due
to the nature of its assets and liabilities. To protect from withdrawal risks, the
MFI can use takaful and profit-equalization reserves to give depositors
competitive returns. The paper shows that the proportion of waqf funds that can
be allocated into microfinancing will depend on the takaful and economic capital
reserves.
Obaidullah (2008) has identified that absence of institutional credit guarantee is
an important factor that demotivates the commercial banks and IFIs to be
involved in micro-credit activities for low income groups of society as well as
small and medium enterprises. He maintains that it is essential to establish
linkages among various institutions at micro, meso as well as at macro level for
the growth of Islamic MF industry. He further asserts that if various
organizations including Govt. agencies, Central Bank, Commercial and Islamic
Banks, Takaful and Cooperative Companies as well as NGOs and NPOs could be
interlinked, they can reach at ‘the poorest of the poor’ of a society and
significantly contribute towards the development of micro-enterprises, enhancing
the financial inclusion and alleviating the poverty from the gross-root levels of a
society.

Frasca (2008, p.3) while focusing on the competitiveness of Islamic

Microfinance, argues that Islamic finance could be potential ‘heaven’ for the
investors who have become victim of current global credit crisis to relieve them
from the speculative excess of the conventional system. Karim et. al (2008)
conducted a survey, which includes 125 institutions in 19 Muslim countries. It
shows that Islamic microfinance providers still reach only 300,000 clients, one-
third of them in Bangladesh alone. They argue that to reach more people and
build sustainable institutions, it is essential to focus on designing affordable
products, training and retaining skilled loan officers and administrators,
improving operational efficiency, and managing overall business risk.
According to IDLO Report (2009), microfinance remains less developed in the
Arab world than, for example, in Asia, Africa or Latin America and, although it
seems to have taken hold in many Middle Eastern and North
African (MENA) countries, it remains largely undeveloped in Saudi Arabia and
in its infancy in the UAE. However, since 2006, the UAE has staged several high
profile microfinance conferences showcasing microfinance initially as an
alternative business model, in which participants might like to engage, and
subsequently as an alternative asset class, in which participants might like to
invest. On 17 January 2008 Noor Islamic Bank announced its commitment to
serving the "unbankable" segment of the UAE population and, on 20 January
2009 at the Arab Economic, Social and Development Summit in Kuwait City¸ the
League of Arab States announced the formation of a US$2 billion fund run by the
Arab Development Fund that is set to include a microfinance programme that is
aimed at helping small businesses through the credit crunch, extending credit to
cottage industries and reducing unemployment across the Arab world.
The Table 1 shows the outreach of Islamic micro-finance CGAP global survey in
2007 as referred by Frasca (2008, p. 12) in which information was collected from
over 126 Islamic MFIs and MFI experts in 19 Muslim countries. The survey
reveales that Islamic MFIs have a total global outreach of 380,000 clients (or an
estimated one-half 1% of total microfinance outreach). 80,000 of the above
clients are served through a network of Indonesian cooperatives and another
100,000 of the total clients are served by two large MFIs in Bangladesh. It must
be stressed that the MENA region is particularly underserved as CGAP’s survey
revealed that Islamic MF Is were concentrated in three countries Indonesia,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan, accounting for 80% of the global outreach.

Frasca (2008) undertakes two seminal case studies in the use of Islamic finance
instruments in MFIs: a) the Sanduq project in Jabal Al-Hoss, Syria; and b) the
Hodeidah Microfinance Programme (HMFP) in Hodeidah, Yemen. He concludes
that Islamic MFIs can be both competitive with conventional MFIs in the region
and meet the reported demand for religiously tailored financial services for lower
income groups. If we are to assume that microfinance in general can improve
standard of living and alleviate poverty, Islamic MFIs appear to be doing as well
as their conventional microfinance counterparts.
In Pakistan, the condition of people is pathetic as compared to other Muslim
counties. Almost 80 percent of Pakistanis are poor according to the Economic
Survey 2005-06 (defined as ‘extremely poor’, ‘ultra poor’, ‘poor’, ‘vulnerable’
and ‘quasi-non poor’). The number of people in the lowest three of these income
categories is over 36 million yet according to a USAID study, only 600,000
people in Pakistan received microfinance in 2005. Although this is significant
growth from 60,000 in 1999, it leaves many people out. While some people not
using microfinance are just not interested in it, many may opt out of conventional
microfinance due to its reliance upon interest-based financing, prohibited by
Islam as riba (Goud, 2007).
Apart from the banks, there are two notable Islamic microfinance institutions
(IMFIs) in Pakistan: Akhuwat and Islamic Relief. This research paper takes an
overview of functions and operations of Akhuwat in the country and attempts to
see its contribution towards povety alleviation in the country based on its past
performance.

SUSTAINABILITY

A lot have been written on the importance of sustainability issues of MFIs.

Immediate thing that comes in mind about sustainability is its financial aspect -
operational self sufficiency and financial self sufficiency. Actually financial and
operational sustainability is only one major dimension.
After seeing the Figure 1, Critics would argue that AKHUWAT is not
operationally sustainable with the given standards. AKHUWAT is not covering
100% of its operational cost.
Yes, it is true in financial terms but there are some other dimensions of
sustainability where AKHUWAT is performing better. These different
dimensions of sustainability are:

1.Microfinance services for all living below the poverty line including the
“extreme poor”.
2.Interest free loans as a powerful tool against poverty.
3.The role of AKHUWAT is extending the helping hand and not doing
business with poor.

FUTURE CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS

Figure 2 indicates that loan portfolio gorwth declines with the sharp decline of
equity growth over the last 5 years. Constant growth in loan portfolio would be
challenging for the akhuwat and need to be tackled in an effective manner.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
This research project recognizes Islamic micro-finance as an important
component in poverty alleviation strategies. While conventional microfinance
products have been successful in Muslim majority countries, these products do
not fulfill the needs of all Muslim clients. Combining the Islamic social principle
of caring for the less fortunate with microfinance’s power to provide financial
access to the poor has the potential to reach out to millions more people, many of
whom say they would prefer Islamic products over conventional microfinance
products.
This research paper undertakes a case study of Akhuwat, an Islamic microfinance
organization operating in Pakistan. Critical financial analysis of Akhuwat
indicates that it is providing its services for all living below the poverty line
including the “extreme poor” and Interest free loans can be used as a powerful
tool against poverty. Yet Loan portfolio gorwth of Akhuwat declines with the
sharp decline of equity growth over the last 5 years that might pose some
constrainsts on its finanical stability in future. This challenge could be overcome
by integrating Islamic microfinance with NGOs, NPOs (non-profit
organizations), Zakah, Awqaf and with Takaful as well as with professional
training and capacity building institutions in Pakistan to provide Islamic
microfinanicial services to the poorest of the poor under one roof. It will help to
uplift the living standard of people and ultimately contribute towards the
economic development and enriched prosperity of the country.
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